In the last several decades, advances in electronic technology have reduced the cost of increasingly complex and useful portable computing devices. Cost reduction and consumer demand have proliferated the use of portable computing devices such that they are practically ubiquitous in modern society, most often in connection with entertainment, communications and office productivity. Some examples of commonly used portable computing devices include smartphones, tablet computers, portable media players, etc.
Many portable computing devices include a touch screen display, i.e., an electronic visual display that the user can control through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with one or more fingers. A variety of protective cases are available for such portable computing devices. Some cases do not have any type of protective cover over the face of the touch screen display. Other cases include a protective transparent cover, but are not waterproof. Still other cases include a protective transparent cover, and are rendered waterproof through the use of an adhesive sealant.
Barcodes and barcode readers are also in widespread use today, particularly in commercial environments such as point-of-sale stations in retail stores and supermarkets, inventory and document tracking, and the like. A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of information. Devices for identifying or extracting information from barcodes are generally referred to as barcode readers (or barcode scanners).